Mohun; Or, the Last Days of Lee and His Paladins Part 114

But all was of no avail. The Federal line came on like a wave of steel and fire. A long deafening crash, mingled with the thunder of cannon, stunned the ear; above the combatants rose a huge smoke-cloud, from which issued cheers and groans.

Suddenly an officer of General Lee's staff pa.s.sed by like lightning; was lost in the smoke; then I saw him speaking to Gordon. At the few words uttered by the officer, the latter turned pale.

A moment afterward a white flag fluttered--the order to surrender had come.

What I felt at that instant I can not describe. Something seemed to choke me. I groaned aloud, and turned toward the cavalry.

At fifty paces from me I saw Mordaunt, surrounded by his officers and men.

His swarthy face glowed--his eyes blazed. Near him, General Fitzhugh Lee--with Tom Herbert, and some other members of his staff--was sitting his horse, pale and silent.

"What will you do, general?" said Mordaunt, saluting with drawn sabre.

Fitzhugh Lee uttered a groan.

"I don't wish to be included in the surrender," he said. "Come, let's go. General Lee no longer requires my poor services!"[1]

[Footnote 1: His words.]

Mordaunt saluted again, as General Lee and his staff officers turned away.

"We'll go out sword in hand!" Mordaunt said. "Let who will, follow me!"

A wild cheer greeted the words. The men formed column and charged.

As they moved, a second cheer was heard at fifty paces from us. I turned my head, and saw Mohun, in front of about fifty cavalrymen, among whom I recognized Nighthawk.

In an instant I was at Mohun's side.

"You are going to charge!" I said.

"And die, Surry! A gentleman gives his word but once!"

And, following Mordaunt with long leaps, Mohun and his hors.e.m.e.n burst upon the enemy.

Then was presented a spectacle which made the two armies hold their breath.

The column of cavalry under Mordaunt and Mohun, had struck the Federal line of battle.

For an instant, you could see little, hear little, in the smoke and uproar. A furious volley unhorsed at least half of the charging column, and the rest were seen striking with their sabres at the blue infantry, who stabbed with their bayonets at the rearing horses.

Then a thundering shout rose. The smoke was swept away by the wind, and made all clear.

Mordaunt had cut his way through, and was seen to disappear with a dozen followers.

Mohun, shot through the breast, and streaming with blood, had fallen from the saddle, his foot had caught in the stirrup, and he was dragged by his frightened animal toward the Confederate lines.

The horse came on at a headlong gallop, but suddenly a cavalier came up with him, seized the bridle, and threw him violently on his haunches.

The new-comer was Nighthawk.

Leaping to the ground, he seized the body of Mohun in his arms, extricated his foot from the stirrup, and remounted his own horse, with the form of his master still clasped to his breast.

Then, plunging the spurs into his animal, he turned to fly. But his last hour had come.

A bullet, fired at fifty paces, penetrated his back, and the blood spouted. He fell from the flying animal to the earth, but his arms still clasped the body of Mohun, whose head lay upon his breast.

A loud cheer rose, and the blue line rushed straight upon him.

Nighthawk's head rose, and he gazed at them with flas.h.i.+ng eyes--then he looked at Mohun and groaned.

Summoning his last remains of strength, he drew from his breast a pencil and a piece of paper, wrote some words upon the paper, and affixed it to Mohun's breast.

This seemed to exhaust him. He had scarcely finished, when his head sank, his shoulders drooped, and falling forward on the breast of Mohun, he expired.

An hour afterward, all was still. On the summit of the Court-House hill a blue column was stationary, waving a large white flag.

General Lee had surrendered.

XXIX.

THE SURRENDER.

Lee had surrendered the army of Northern Virginia.

Ask old soldiers of that army to describe their feelings at the announcement, reader. They will tell you that they can not; and I will not attempt to record my own.

It was, truly, the bitterness of death that we tasted at ten o'clock on the morning of that ninth of April, 1865, at Appomattox Court-House.

Gray-haired soldiers cried like children. It was hard to say whether they would have preferred, at that moment, to return to their families or to throw themselves upon the bayonets of the enemy, and die.

In that hour of their agony they were not insulted, however. The deportment of the enemy was chivalric and courteous. No bands played; no cheers were heard; and General Grant was the first to salute profoundly his gray-haired adversary, who came, with a single officer, to arrange, in a house near the field, the terms of surrender.

They are known. On the tenth they were carried out.

The men stacked the old muskets, which they had carried in a hundred fights, surrendered the bullet-torn colors, which had waved over victorious fields, and silently returned, like mourners, to their desolate homes.

Two days after the surrender, Mohun was still alive.

Three months afterward, the welcome intelligence reached me that he was rapidly recovering.

He had made a narrow escape. Ten minutes after the death of the faithful Nighthawk, the Federal line had swept over him; and such was the agony of his wound, that he exclaimed to one of the enemy:--

"Take your pistol, and shoot me!"